Name: BISA 2021 conference - Forget International Studies?
Start: 2021-06-21T08:55:00+01:00
End: 2021-06-23T21:00:00+01:00
Location: No location set

BISA 2021 conference - Forget International Studies?

from Monday, June 21, 2021 (8:55 AM) to Wednesday, June 23, 2021 (9:00 PM)

Monday, June 21, 2021

9:00 AM (un)Disciplined Subjects: Questioning IR and Academia
(un)Disciplined Subjects: Questioning IR and Academia (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 8 International Relations (IR) has long been grappling with the issue of defining itself as a discipline. This has initiated important debates: while some aim to draw strict disciplinary boundaries, others expand the scope of the discipline with the aim to make it ‘truly’ global. The objective of this collective discussion is to explore the myriad of ways in which IR, including the debates on what IR as a discipline is/should be, is ‘disciplining’ scholar and student subjectivities. The discussion, first, explores formal/informal and explicit/implicit hierarchies that have been reproduced even in the critical circles. This discussion considers aspects of IR, including, the fetishization of the state and its gaze as well as broader structures of academia such as science, authority, and expertise, where these canon-building practices homogenise, silence, and exclude. Second, the discussion explores the discipline of IR and academia as a power structure where knowledge is commodified and made ‘useful’ for the policy-making sphere. Moreover, as different roles and identities are crafted and imposed on individuals within the academy, resistance to those roles and identities can be met with punitive consequences, stifling creativity. This collaborative practice, involving five facilitators and the audience, opens up the space for collective sharing of experiences and ideas to deal with the hierarchies in IR and power structures in academia.

Between the politics and poetics of IR knowledge production
Between the politics and poetics of IR knowledge production (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 1 a

Challenges to European Security
Challenges to European Security (European Security Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 6 This panel addresses different contemporary challenges to European security. Looking through different theoretical and conceptual lenses, the papers in this panel examine and reflect on a variety of aspects that challenge European security policies and actors including terrorism, populism and the far right, identity and migration and atypical actors.

Critical Approaches to Extreme Right Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism.
Critical Approaches to Extreme Right Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism. (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 2 In the last decades, terrorism and counter-terrorism studies have been extensively focused on al-Qaida and ISIS-inspired extremism and on governmental and societal responses to it (Jackson, 2016; Jarvis and Lister, 2015). Within this context, countering right-wing terrorism has not received much attention, although it may be argued that the Christchurch attack in New Zealand in 2019, and the gradual global emergence of right-wing movements seem to be changing this dynamic. In this scenario, this panel wants to create the space for a much-needed open debate around countering extreme right violence. Learning from the past, and trying to avoid similar mistakes, this panel wants to answer to a social and political urgent need to debate how to counter this kind of violence. The panel issue bring together critical scholars from different background and disciplines and is aimed at opening a space of debate on this kind of violence within the CTS community and beyond.

Emotions, temporality and affect
Emotions, temporality and affect (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 3 This panel explores the connections between emotions, temporality and affect in various settings, notably those operating in surveillance technologies of the War on Terror, at the aftermath of terrorist attacks, during international crises, and within anti-disarmament politics.

Hegel and Hegelianism and Ethics in IR
Hegel and Hegelianism and Ethics in IR (Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 5 The aim of this panel is to reassert the significance of Hegel and the Hegelian tradition of political philosophy for the contemporary study of International Relations. Although recognised as one of the most significant philosophers of modernity and as an influential political theorist and ethicist of the first rank, G.W.F. Hegel has not exerted a comparable influence on the development of the discipline of International Relations. The central claim of this panel is that the relative neglect of Hegel’s complex meditations on politics and ethics at the international level ought to be redressed as his work offers a valuable critical resource for contemporary theorists of international society. If Kant was the political philosopher of a post-Cold War Cosmopolitan, liberal world order, Hegel promises to play a similar role in the contemporary era of crisis. The eclipse of Cosmopolitan principles of global governance invites reinvestigation into Hegel’s insights into the nature of ethics, politics and society. Hegel confronts theorists of the international with a series of challenges to prevailing orthodoxies and offers the means to rethink the bases of global politics by reference not only to moral requirements but political necessities. In contrast to Kant and contemporary cosmopolitans, Hegel and Hegelianism do not prioritise what ‘ought’ to be over how things ‘are.’ The Hegelian aim is to understand the ethical as a fluid, dynamic set of possibilities within a political context as opposed to a static set of legal commandments. The purpose of this panel is to probe these possibilities in a critically engaged fashion, drawing attention to both the promise and the problems inherent in the Hegelian theorisations of - inter alia – war, peace, and the role of law. In an era of growing pessimism and defeatism, IR can afford to ignore Hegel no longer. Hegel’s clear-sighted, balanced theory of IR is the ideal antidote to both the naivety of Cosmopolitanism and also the cynical opportunism of populism.

Reorienting the politics of climate change vulnerability
Reorienting the politics of climate change vulnerability (Environment Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 4 The concept of vulnerability within global climate change politics has come to assume considerable importance, as demonstrated by its prominence within IPCC assessment reports, and its connection within the UNFCCC to climate finance mechanisms and debates about ‘loss and damage’, as well as its more radical use by climate change activists. Using insights from feminist, intersectional, and postcolonial theory, this panel takes climate change vulnerability seriously without accepting the economic and technocratic terms along which the concept has been institutionalised. With these different critical theoretical approaches, the panel reimagines vulnerability in ways that seek to repoliticise the concept and disentangle it from the positivist methodologies that dominate its institutional expression. Papers will focus on asking who is discursively framed as vulnerable and why, and explore these questions empirically and theoretically. They will thereby connect climate change issues with broader questions of how physical and social vulnerability is constructed. They do this to suggest new ways to understand and research climate change vulnerability that draws focus instead on how vulnerability is politically produced, and resources of safety are differentially distributed along gendered and racialised lines as well as across the human/more than human divide.

Understanding Foreign Policy making within Area Studies
Understanding Foreign Policy making within Area Studies (Foreign Policy Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 7 The increasing importance of regional politics in the formulation of the foreign policy theory and practice is outstanding. Traditional perspectives focus on the three levels of analysis within the FPA theory. The aim of this issue is to create a closer nexus between area studies and foreign policy as a sub field of IR. In specific, this issue demonstrates how different regions inform theory through an examination of non-state actors as agents of foreign policy. It, therefore, argues about the non-state level and aspires to reach certain research findings through the examination of a variety of case studies. The impact of non-state entities is demonstrated here through the lenses of their direct role as decision-makers. The examples are drawn from the African continent and the Middle East, to Europe and Asia.

11:00 AM 'Jurisdictional Accumulation: an early modern history of law, empires, and capital' book launch
'Jurisdictional Accumulation: an early modern history of law, empires, and capital' book launch (Historical Sociology and International Relations Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 3 This roundtable brings experts in law, history, and historical sociology to discuss Maia Pal's recent book *Jurisdictional Accumulation* (CUP, 2020). The majority of European early modern empires – the Castilian, French, Dutch, and English/British – developed practices of jurisdictional accumulation, distinguished by the three categories of extensions, transports, and transplants of authority. This book is concerned with various diplomatic and colonial agents which enabled the transports and transplants of sovereign authority. Through historical analyses of ambassadors and consuls in the Mediterranean based on primary and secondary material, and on the empires' Atlantic imperial expansions and conquests, the book makes a major analytical contribution to historical sociology. As an interdisciplinary exercise in conceptual innovation based on a Political Marxist framework and its concept of social property relations, the book goes beyond common binaries in both conventional and critical histories. The new concept of jurisdictional accumulation brings ambassadors, consuls, merchants, and lawyers out of the shadows of empire and onto the main stage of the construction of modern international relations and international law.

Anti-genderism – from the everyday to the geopolitical
Anti-genderism – from the everyday to the geopolitical (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 2 Increasingly ‘anti-genderism’ (see Ackerly, Friedman, Gopinath, Zalewski 2019) has emerged as a key rallying cry in global politics. A rejection of, and reaction against, feminism and so-called ‘gender ideology’ acts as an ideational linchpin across multiple sites of politics, from internet chatrooms to the rhetoric of world leaders. This roundtable will explore how homophobia, racism and misogyny operate in a holistic entanglement within these spaces and discourses and constitute a core ideological force in contemporary far right populism from the so-called fringes, to the so-called mainstream of political debates. By exploring abortion politics, violent anti-feminism, and the leadership of figures such as Trump, Orbán, Bolsonaro, Duda and others and it seeks to unpack the different ways that anti-genderism operates within and circles through political movements, ideologies, and ideas such as nationalism, populism, and extremism.

Human Rights and Art: Understanding Violations and Facilitating Change
Human Rights and Art: Understanding Violations and Facilitating Change (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 9 **Human Rights and Art: Understanding Violations and Facilitating Change** In the aftermath of violence and conflict how is it possible to understand human rights violations and engage the experiences of victims and survivors? Victims and survivors often do not speak up for fear of reprisal and/or the stigma associated with violence and abuse, legal and bureaucratic systems can fail, and crimes can go unacknowledged and unpunished. As a result, there is often difficulty in eliciting and supporting experiences and narratives around human rights violations, both at local and global levels. Despite the growing scholarship on art and aesthetics in international studies, the creative dimensions of human rights remain under-researched. This panel seeks to fill that gap by asking what can art offer in facilitating an understanding of human rights violations? How do arts-based interventions have the potential to elucidate rights violations, empower individuals and groups, and advocate for and effect change across different political levels? In addressing these questions, the panel seeks to explore how art can contribute both to the individual expression of human rights violations and the formulation of redress, and the public depiction of harm to give visibility to the impact of violations and open up spaces to develop societal and policy change; in order to contribute to a transformed and transformative global society. Drawing on transdisciplinary research across international studies, art theory, and law, the panel will explore a range of case studies related to different art forms and initiatives around the globe. Convenor: Eliza Garnsey, University of Cambridge, esg35@cam.ac.uk Chair: Professor Andrea Durbach, University of New South Wales, Australia (time zone Sydney, AEST) Panellists (incl. affiliations and time zones): • Tatiana Fernández-Maya, University of New South Wales, Australia (time zone AEST) • Eliza Garnsey, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (based in Australia, time zone AEST) • Caitlin Hamilton, University of Sydney, Australia (time zone AEST) • Tania Islas Weinstein, McGill University, Canada (time zone EST) • Konstantinos Pittas, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (based in Greece, time zone EET)

Metaphors in International Security
Metaphors in International Security (Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 8 This panel explores the role of metaphorical illustrations in constructing, legitimising, and producing discourses and practices of security in International Relations. Practitioners as well as scholars of IR draw extensively on metaphors to describe and justify security measures and violent actions, ranging from nuclear armament to anti-immigration policies and specific forms of warfare. At the same time, metaphors may be used to render international interactions as violent, threatening, or harmful. These metaphors mediate how the international and its workings are constructed, perceived, and discussed. Whether employed by foreign policy decision-makers, international organisations, or scholars of International Relations, metaphors are not neutral but convey specific representations, problem constructions, and prescribed solutions for issues of international politics. This panel examines various types of metaphors in International Security, the role these metaphors play in representing world views, how they condition violent practices, and how different metaphors produce different effects. The presentations will engage with various methodological approaches in Interpretive IR and multiple facets of metaphorical constructions in the interpretation of International Relations while focusing on empirical material from the intersections of international politics with medicine, sports, and cybernetics.

New approaches to the global dimensions of (local) politics and conflict in Africa
New approaches to the global dimensions of (local) politics and conflict in Africa (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 1 This panel presents a range of innovative ways of approaching the global dimensions of African politics, with a particular focus on post-conflict societies. It includes a study of the effect of international orthodoxies on local perceptions of Nigerian counter-terrorism; an exploration of participatory video as a means of amplifying women's perspectives on oil conflict in the Niger Delta; a new approach to the African airport as 'gatemaker' not 'gatekeeper'; a comparative study of the trust in the police in post-conflict societies, in both Africa and Latin America; and an analysis of legitimation work by Chinese NGOs.

Political mobilisation, youth and women’s activism and new democratic politics in the southern Mediterranean, Middle East and its Diasporas
Political mobilisation, youth and women’s activism and new democratic politics in the southern Mediterranean, Middle East and its Diasporas (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 7 The panel will explore how recent movements, new social actors, women and youth in particular have been responding to crises of democracy, the pandemic and structural inequalities in countries across the Mediterranean, Middle East and in their Diasporas. It will include papers that engage with different forms of mobilisation, social spaces and political legitimacy at a time when democratic politics is characterised by increasingly illiberal rhetoric, nationalism and change. Democratic politics is subject to conflicting developments; it comprises commitments to non-violent strategies and hope, as well as rearticulating new hegemonic frontiers that might bolster populist and authoritarian movements. While exploring different global outlooks, and the perceptions of young people, the panellists will seek to draw on critical perspectives such as postcolonialism, poststructuralism, feminist and constructivist theories.

Securitisation of Migrants and Refugees in Europe from a historical, political and ethical point of view
Securitisation of Migrants and Refugees in Europe from a historical, political and ethical point of view (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 5 There is a consensus among academics that migrants and refugees have been increasingly securitised in Europe. Political practices and media discourse have portrayed them as a security threat. This raises ethical and human rights questions, especially because the securitisation is taking place within the EU framework. This panel will unpack different dimensions of securitisation, and will throw light on its connection to far-right rise, terrorism and the biometricised governance regime. It focuses on the securitisation of migrants and refugees in Europe, highlighting historical and political dimensions. Two papers of the panel will analyse securitisation practices through a historical lens. The first will examine parallels between the 1930s and 40s on the one hand and today on the other hand, by scrutinising debates in the political arena and the media. The second will look into the EU’s historical decisions and actions that led to an increasingly securitised refugee and asylum policy, viewing these processes through an ethical point of view. Furthermore, another paper will examine the link between the constructed security threat that refugees pose with Daesh terrorism. It will analyse hybrid security conflicts, including hate speech towards migrants and refugees and the far-right rise in Europe. The next paper will focus on EU border policies, characterised by heightened securitisation and biometricisation, questioning the usage of biometric technology as a normal and safe medium for ensuring security at the borders, taking under consideration the market-oriented reading of this technologised hegemonic context.

Something old something new: conceptual thinking as a way to push IR intellectual boundaries
Something old something new: conceptual thinking as a way to push IR intellectual boundaries (International Relations as a Social Science Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 6 Something old something new: conceptual thinking as a way to push IR intellectual boundaries

Understanding Impact in International Peace and Security
Understanding Impact in International Peace and Security (International Law and Politics Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 4 ‘Impact’ has become a major and unmissable part of the research landscape. Worth 25% of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 evaluation for universities, it also presents a number of questions for practitioners with whom university researchers engage and who face requests to assist with gathering evidence and developing research engagement. The relationship between universities and the range of practitioners with whom they work (whether from the policy, creative and cultural, business, third or other sectors) is crucial to developing world class research and impact — 4* impact, in terms of the REF. At the boundaries of law and politics, there may be plentiful opportunities for research to benefit from engagement with practitioners and for research to make a difference. This roundtable creates a flexible and adaptable opportunity for university researchers and for practitioners to come together to explore where, how and why research at the nexus of international law and international politics have impact, including in light of, but far from limited to, REF2021. The proposed roundtable follows a highly successful workshop organised jointly by the British International Studies Association Working Group on International Law and Politics and by the School of Security Studies, King’s College London — and is open again to anything reflected on the spectrum from art to zoology, and is open to all ideas relating to relevant research impact.

12:30 PM Exhibitor Hall
Exhibitor Hall
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Room: Conference Website

Global Ethics in a Pluralist World
Global Ethics in a Pluralist World (Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Room: Room 10 Do universal values, norms, or principles exist in the contemporary global context? On what basis could such values be established? Do they rely on theology, philosophy, politics, or society? Or, is the world ultimately a pluralist one in which there can be no agreement on values? What intellectual figures are most valuable in seeking out answers to questions of universalism and pluralism? This panel asks these questions through an engagement with individual thinkers and traditions of thought. Panellists are asked to put these intellectual resources into conversation with the dynamics of global politics, however this might be defined.
2:00 PM KEYNOTE 1: Geographies of Racism - SPONSORED BY POLITY - Gary Younge (University of Manchester) Robbie Shilliam (Johns Hopkins University) Olivia Rutazibwa (University of Portsmouth)
KEYNOTE 1: Geographies of Racism - SPONSORED BY POLITY
- Gary Younge (University of Manchester)
- Robbie Shilliam (Johns Hopkins University)
- Olivia Rutazibwa (University of Portsmouth)
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Room: Webinar Room XXX
4:00 PM Coffee and conversation networking session - European Security WG
Coffee and conversation networking session - European Security WG
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 10

Evolving Protection Architectures at the United Nations
Evolving Protection Architectures at the United Nations (Intervention and Responsibility to Protect Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 2 This IR2PWG Panel focuses on evolving protection architectures at the United Nations with a special focus on R2P and humanitarian intervention both as instruments and norms. It focuses on the futures of the Responsibility to Protect as well as practices under the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly. Moreover, it reflects on the role of progress, transparency and norm entrepreneurship.

Forgetting IR to Reimagine IR
Forgetting IR to Reimagine IR (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 9 Forgetting IR to Reimagine IR

Italian Political Science Association sponsored panel: Testing IR Theory and Research on World Order Transition
Italian Political Science Association sponsored panel: Testing IR Theory and Research on World Order Transition (Conference/Management)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 8 TESTING IR THEORY AND RESEARCH ON WORLD ORDER TRANSITION

Masculinities and Queer perspectives on Transitional Justice
Masculinities and Queer perspectives on Transitional Justice (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 7 Masculinities and Queer Perspectives in Transitional Justice Although the field and study of transitional justice – referring to measures designed to deal with the legacies of human rights violations in the aftermath of conflicts or authoritarian regimes – was traditionally silent on gender, the past decade witnessed the increasing utilization of feminist theories to elucidate the gendered workings of post-conflict transitions. Not at least since Bell and O’Rourke in 2007 have posed the critical questions of ‘where are women, where is gender and where is feminism in transitional justice’, considerations around gender have increasingly gained traction in the growing literature. However, while gender perspectives have become a burgeoning focus of analysis in the TJ field, the dominant conceptualization of 'gender' in scholarship and practice on dealing with the past effectively remains an exclusive one, predominantly equated with ‘women’. As a result of these dominant foci and conceptions, careful consideration for the roles of masculinities and for the experiences of sexual and gender minorities have remained mostly absent. By bringing different critical approaches to gender in TJ – including masculinities and queer perspectives – into conversation, this roundtable seeks to begin to address these gaps. We thereby contribute towards a more inclusive and holistic understanding of gender in transitional spaces, which both challenges and contributes to current approaches and practices. The work of the participants in the roundtable addresses masculinities and queer perspective across different post-conflict contexts, as well as from diverse disciplinary, theoretical and methodological backgrounds, to illustrate the diversity of contexts where such approaches offer new insights into understanding, disrupting and/or complexifying these processes. The participants to the roundtable are all contributors to an edited volume of the same name, accepted with Intersentia Press and to be published in 2022. (Please note that we would need a panel timing that suits both US and European participants, eg. afternoon CET)

RUSI sponsored roundtable: The Middle East, Geopolitics, and International Studies Today
RUSI sponsored roundtable: The Middle East, Geopolitics, and International Studies Today (Conference/Management)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Webinar Room Roundtable on the Middle East, geopolitics, and International Studies today

Reprising the Relationship between War and Technology
Reprising the Relationship between War and Technology (War Studies Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 6 Three decades have now passed since the canonical ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ (RMA) debates of the early 1990s. Grounded in the historical idea of a “military revolution”, concepts like Network Centric Warfare promised a technologically-driven paradigm-shift in the conduct, character – and perhaps even nature – of war. With hindsight, however, many of these highest aspirations failed to materialise. Even so, in the intervening years, military-technical innovation has remained a central feature of soldierly activity and scholarly interest; prominent even during the supposedly people-centric wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, the prospect of renewed inter-state competition, on the one hand, and the increasing potency of non-state actors, on the other, has brought questions of technological change and military effectiveness to the fore once again. This panel seeks to reprise traditional understandings of technology and security, by exploring the myriad interconnections between martial praxis and material artefacts. In so doing, it will examine the impact of emerging innovations on warfare, alongside the role of politics and society in generating technical change, to address the underlying conceptual relationships between technology and war.

Russian security policy between the West and the Rest
Russian security policy between the West and the Rest (Russian and Eurasian Security Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 4 Russian security policy between the West and the Rest

The UK's Role in Global Health Security and COVID-19
The UK's Role in Global Health Security and COVID-19 (Global Health Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 1 The UK has long had an established role in Global Health Security though its significant funding of global health institutions such as the WHO and GAVI Alliance, epistemic community of pandemic experts, university partnerships, and global health diplomats. According to assessments such as the Global Health Security Index the UK (alongside the US) was set to be one of the best placed states to deal with a major pandemic. The catastrophic response of the UK to COVID-19 challenges this assessment and poses significant questions for the UK as a leading actor in global health security and pandemic preparedness. Speakers on this Roundtable reflect on the impact of COVID19 on the UK's role in global health security, drawing on their research on borders, militaries, previous pandemics, equity to medicines, the right to health, and understandings of health security.

Trumpism, US Foreign Policy and International Relations Theory
Trumpism, US Foreign Policy and International Relations Theory (US Foreign Policy Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 5 Panel description: This panel aims to explore how the theories of International Relations (IR) can make sense of the Trump phenomenon. While the rise of Donald Trump to the US presidency and his notorious rants against the establishment’s foreign policy and the liberal international order have received substantial scholarly and public attention in the last years, there have been very few attempts to study Trump’s foreign policy from the perspective of IR theory. The contributions of this panel examine how different IR theories enable us to understand and explain Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric, style and practices. To what extent, does the Trump phenomenon pose a challenge to IR theories and its core assumptions and categories? What are the implications of Trump for the theorisation of US foreign policy? How would different IR theories evaluate Trump’s foreign policy? Paper abstracts: 1)The irrational actor: the Trump administration, the fracturing of US foreign policy identity, and the challenge for IR theory Ruth Deyermond, King's College London This paper will consider the challenge posed by the fragmented and inconsistent nature of Trump’s foreign policy to IR theory, considering the case of the administration’s approach to NATO, to NATO member states, and to broader questions of European security. It will argue that traditional IR theoretical approaches struggle to explain Trump’s foreign policy because Trump’s personal approach does not appear to be informed by traditional conceptions of foreign policy interests or identity, and because other individuals, groups, and organisations within the Trump administration hold widely differing and frequently changing positions. Constructivist approaches allow scholars to make sense of the individual voices in Trump’s foreign policy – how they articulate both specific policies and how those policies relate to actor understandings of US national identity – but characteristics of the Trump administration set significant limits even here. The two most significant of these are the instability of administration membership – key foreign and security policy positions have experienced a high turnover of personnel – and the lack of transparency, including documentation, on foreign policy matters. The paper argues that the Trump administration’s foreign policy thus poses fundamental conceptual and empirical challenges for IR scholars of all theoretical positions, and for the possibility of thinking about a coherent US national identity narrative in this period. 2)Understanding Trump’s foreign policy and its rejection of liberalism Matthew Hill, Liverpool John Moores University The American Mission is a framework that has driven the US since the founding days of the republic. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness are universal values to repeat around the world. In contemporary times, this longstanding promotion of liberal values is explained through the language and practice of liberal internationalism and democracy promotion. With the foreign policy failures of the Bush administration alongside the financial and economic crises, the Obama administration limited democracy promotion’s use as a suitable tool to acquiring its foreign policy objectives. This paper examines democracy promotion at the conceptual, rhetoric and implementation levels and suggests that this liberal internationalist and democratic peace theory-inspired foreign policy framework was further dismantled by the Trump administration. Dismantled to such an extent that liberal ideology was rejected in favour of a populist, unilateral and economic driven nationalism. This paper also questions the long-term implications of its rejection during these last few years and suggests that the Biden administration looks likely to step-back from this full-scale rejection. 3)„A City Upon A Hill“: Paradoxes of American Exceptionalism and Restraint from a Neo-Classical Realism Perspective Cornelia Baciu, University of Konstanz US exceptionalism and a foreign policy of restraint has acerbated under Donald Trump. Defensive, offensive realists or institutionalists define restraint quite distinctly. Offensive realists define restraint as an exit from a hegemonic order because of the costs associated with it and because a rules-based international order is utopic given the anarchical structure of the international system and faults of international institutions (Mearsheimer 2018, 2019). Institutionalists define restraint as renouncing at hegemony for participating in a rule-based multipolar international order, in which restraint is associated with leadership transformation and seeking to shape a world order via engagement and commitment in multilateral institutions (Ikenberry 2011). However, these approaches seem to lack theoretical depth needed to explain political decisions during Donald Trump. To fill this gap, I propose neo-classical realism to study American exceptionalism and restraint during the mandate of Donald Trump. I argue that, first US exit from important international agreements can be explained by international-level variables, such as competition with China. Second, I argue that domestic factors also influence Trump’s political preferences, and this is demonstrated by the “America First” programme. Third, I argue that individual-level variables also play a role in policy-decisions of illiberal leaders – this was demonstrated by Trumps calling in of the military in response to the riots in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd. Trump demonstrated avidity for power exertion in the detriment of the Constitution and demands for justice. This paper adds a theoretical distinction to neo-classical realism, by demonstrating the importance of individual-level variables in policy decisions. At policy level, the findings show that American exceptionalism has not ended, but it transformed. It also reveals new paradoxes, related to the aspiring role of world leader (over China) and restraint, while simultaneously opening an interesting puzzle pertaining to the role of EU as an emerging pole of power. 4)Right-wing Populism, Foreign Policy and Folk Realism: Trumpism and US Foreign Policy Thorsten Wojczewski, King's College London The apparent global rise of populism poses a challenge to International Relations Theory as populist concepts such as ‘the people’ do not readily fit into the established analytical categories and assumptions of mainstream theories. This paper discusses these challenges in relation to (neo)realism and proposes a re-conceptualization of (neo)realist theory as folk realism as theoretical framework to capture the main features of right-wing populist foreign policy. It argues that folk realism constitutes a crude variant of realism which (1)foregrounds the notion of popular sovereignty, (2)seeks to appeal to the common-sense and fears of ‘ordinary’ people, (3)offers simple and swift solutions to international problems, and (4)propagates the deliberate transgression of the conventions of diplomacy and established tenets of a state’s foreign policy. The paper applies this theoretical framework to the case of the United States and examines the impact of populism on US foreign policy under Donald Trump as well as the broader implications of right-wing populism for foreign policy-making. 5)Why American grand strategy has changed: international constraint, generational shift, and the return of realism Nicholas Kitchen, University of Surrey From Clinton to Bush to Obama to Trump: the personalities, rhetoric, and policies of Presidents charged with defining US foreign policy in the post-Cold War era could hardly appear more different. Yet recent treatments of American grand strategy have sought to highlight a lack of debate about grand strategy, and to emphasize groupthink and “habit” within the US foreign policy establishment. This article argues that US grand strategy has changed, and suggests that those who prioritize continuities rely on an overly restrictive definition of grand strategy. Employing policy paradigms as an analytical framework, this paper finds significant variation in US grand strategy across the four post-Cold War presidencies. Where the variation between Clinton and George W. Bush’s presidencies can be explained by differing strategic ideas among American foreign policymaking elites, a trend towards less active hegemonic management running through the Obama and Trump presidencies is more structural in nature, reflecting both international constraints and generational change.

6:00 PM Forgetting International Studies: the exclusion of Hispano-American contributions
Forgetting International Studies: the exclusion of Hispano-American contributions (Orphan Papers track)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 3 Panelists: -Dr. Jessica de Alba Ulloa presenting the international thought of José María Torres Caidedo (1830-1889), -Dr. Indra Labardini Fragoso presenting the international thought of Hermila Galindo (1886-1954), -Dr. Alberto Lozano Vazquez presenting the international though of Octavio Paz (1914-1998), -Dr. Carlos Gabriel Arguelles Arredondo presenting the international thought of Antonio Truyol y Sierra (1913-2003), -Dr. Almendra Ortiz de Zárate Béjarpresenting the international thought of Fernando Cardoso (1931-) Chair: -Dr. Jose Ricardo VIllanueva Lira During more than two decades, International Relations (IR) has experienced a fruitful historiographical turn. Despite that conventional narratives keep being pervasive in the teaching of the disciplinary history of IR, some of the foundational tenets of traditional stories have been indeed debunked through solid revisionist evidence that demonstrate the complexity of history of the (sub)discipline. Nevertheless, with rare exceptions, this important research has been primarily focused on the development of IR in the West, i.e. it is primarily Anglo-centric. Valuable studies have retrieved the lost contributions to international thought of forgotten theorists such as Paul Reinsch, Henry Brailsford, Harold Laski, among others. Less research, however, has been conducted on non-English speaking figures. This panel aims to highlight the often unknown international thought of several Hispano-American intellectuals, particularly of José María Torres Caidedo (1830-1889), Hermila Galindo (1886-1954), Octavio Paz (1914-1998), Antonio Truyol y Sierra (1913-2003) and Fernando Cardoso (1931-).

NATO 2030: Debating NATO's Future
NATO 2030: Debating NATO's Future (European Security Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 8 NATO is currently engaged in a process of strategic reflection on its future: the NATO 2030 expert group report was published in November 2020 and the alliance is likely to adopt a new strategic concept in the new few years. The context for this is an environment defined by increasingly conflictual great power relations between the US (and the West more broadly) and China and Russia and a widening of the parameters of great power competition to include domains such as cyber, space and advanced technology. At the same time, other non-traditional challenges – such as climate change and migration – are likely to pose acute security problems for Europe and North America in coming decades. These challenges raise questions about what NATO is, what NATO is for, and the range of policy options open to NATO and its members. This panel will provide an opportunity for academic reflection on these dynamics and NATO’s response to them. Contributors will address a range of different issues within the broad NATO debate: Brexit, global Britain and NATO (Prof. Mark Webber), NATO, enlargement and Russia (Dr. Tracey German), NATO and the Balkans (Dr. Martin Smith), NATO and the space domain (Dr. Simon Smith) and NATO and the China challenge (Prof. Andrew Cottey).

Recent reflections in IPT
Recent reflections in IPT (Contemporary Research on International Political Theory Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 5 A mixed panel

Remembering race and coloniality in the making of the international: Mapping Sites of Disruption and Destruction
Remembering race and coloniality in the making of the international: Mapping Sites of Disruption and Destruction (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 4 b

Review of International Studies Roundtable I: Disruption by Design
Review of International Studies Roundtable I: Disruption by Design (Conference/Management)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 1 An RIS-sponsored roundtable.

The Art of Forgetting IR: Aesthetics, Creative Methods and the Politics of War and Peace.
The Art of Forgetting IR: Aesthetics, Creative Methods and the Politics of War and Peace. (South East Europe Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 2 Taking the provocation of ‘forgetting’ International Studies, this roundtable reflects on the role of art, aesthetics and creative methods in facilitating a critical engagement with the politics of war and peace beyond the narrow conventions of deterministic and state-centric approaches. We bring together scholars who have been working at the intersection of cultural studies, feminist IR, and peace and conflict studies to discuss how the arts, in various forms, have enabled their attunement to the legacies of violence, conflict, and “post-conflict” failures, as well as aspirations for life and peace otherwise. Building on the longstanding work of feminist and other critical IR scholars ( e.g. Agathangelou & Ling 2009; Lisle 2010; Zalewsky, 2013; Hozić 2016; Bleiker 2017; Choi 2018; Choi, Selmeczi & Strauss, 2020; Särmä, 2020), we start from the premise that turning to aesthetics and creativity as a research ethos can help us challenge and re-imagine the stories we tell about the global politics of violence, war and peace. We ask our contributors to reflect on how mobilising creative methods might enable us to navigate the forces of conflict, violence and destruction, but also to stand in better proximity to dramas of adjustment, fragile solidarities and affective reorientations that dispel war’s totalising shadows. Contributors will address the following questions: - Drawing upon your research, what makes the arts as a distinct mode of knowledge production/site of engagement in the politics of conflict and peace? -How can the arts and creative methods equip the discipline of International Studies to respond to spectacles of conflict, enduring slow violence and failed promises of peace? -Can the arts, in their various forms, inspire visions for peace and alternative ways of being in the world? -To what extent can artistic and creative methods help us interrogate and resist disciplinary boundaries, hierarchies and exclusions reproduced in the academy?

Water Security Across Scales: Intersections of the International
Water Security Across Scales: Intersections of the International (Environment Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 6 Over the past two decades, water security studies have expanded rapidly. Global risks to water frequently rank among the most prevalent challenges in major surveys by the World Economic Forum. Worldwide, freshwater ecosystems are severely threatened, and urban water challenges make headlines from Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro to Flint, Michigan. The purpose of this panel is to examine water security across scales in order to consider how intersecting social, historical, environmental, political, and economic factors affect both empirical explanations and conceptual concerns. The panel has several aims: First, it examines how understandings of water security have evolved alongside new understandings of global risks—from economic and political crises to those arising from impacts on water systems in which the division of the ‘human’ from the ‘natural’ is increasingly blurred. Second, it juxtaposes papers that use different scales of analysis in order to identify aspects of water security challenges that may intersect in surprising ways with both larger-and smaller-scale dynamics. Third, it identifies future areas for water security studies through papers that examine understudied aspects of water insecurity. Together, the three aims offer an opportunity to rethink the boundaries and connections of water systems that connect the everyday to the ecological and to the international.

8:00 PM The Toxicity of Empire: Ruination, sacrifice, myth and nostalgia
The Toxicity of Empire: Ruination, sacrifice, myth and nostalgia (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
8:00 PM - 9:30 PM
Room: Room 2 The papers of this panel explore the toxicity of imperial formations. In examining nuclear testing, fossil fuel expansion, chemical weapons incineration, and Agent Orange leaks, the papers span French Polynesia, the Marshall Islands, Kalama atoll and the U.S. mainland. They discuss how human and non-human beings and spaces are enlisted and/or sacrificed in the name of imperial domination and examine what myths and tactics function to uphold and/or mask toxic imperial formations that continue to this day. Through conceptualizations of layered extraterritoriality, imperialist memory politics, the fossil fuel myth, conservation by ruination, and empire as laboratory, the papers offer alternative stories of empire that question dominating narratives and make visible different, more sustainable futures.
8:30 PM Postgraduate Network Quiz - Tom Vaughan (Aberystywth University)
Postgraduate Network Quiz
- Tom Vaughan (Aberystywth University)
8:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Room: Room 1
Tuesday, June 22, 2021

9:00 AM A Changing Global Nuclear Order
A Changing Global Nuclear Order (Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 1 This panel asks us to reconsider some of our assumptions about the history and future of nuclear order and proposes a variety of approaches to do so - from mentoring initiatives, reinterpreting the boundaries inscribed by historical nuclear events, challenging core nuclear weapons institutions and reconsidering the idea of nuclear order itself.

Historical Sociology of Empires and States
Historical Sociology of Empires and States (Historical Sociology and International Relations Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 3 This panel brings together new research in historical sociology on the role of empires and states in the modern international order, as well as the role of key opposing yet complementary agents such as revolutionaries/state actors and soldiers/mercenaries in shaping key moments of social change.

Inequalities in Bodies, Land and the Biosphere
Inequalities in Bodies, Land and the Biosphere (International Political Economy Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 2 An IPEG panel

International Criminal Law and Practice in Context
International Criminal Law and Practice in Context (International Law and Politics Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 4 This panels gathers together papers considering the formation and operation of international criminal law and associated institutions and practices in political context.

International Legal Order and the Middle East: National and International of a Global Pandemic beyond Regional Engagements
International Legal Order and the Middle East: National and International of a Global Pandemic beyond Regional Engagements (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 6 Historically, crisis is bond to reveal aspects of chaos and inequality. This is particularly when addressing economy, lives and livelihood is to take place within the sense of sustainability and human rights. The outbreak of the pandemic has its clear implications on inequalities all around the world and beyond national limits. It is in such extraordinary times that these implications expand and become much more visible and much more acute. While, Emergency rule and governance has always been conventionally a part of the lexicon in development postcolonial contexts, the emergency of the moment exposes a much larger international inability of most systems around the world to socially, economically, and medically protect the most vulnerable in societies and clearly fail to have a sense of social security. Emergency in the last at least two decades was more often used internationally in relevance to the fight against terrorism. The novelty and unprecedented environment have been always argued to justify measures and restrictions on personal liberties and fundamental human rights. The concurrent vagueness however of the language used was enough to trigger the everlasting challenge to the hollowness of liberal legal rationales and associated international principles of temporality, proportion and necessity let alone state discretion over all of the above. Scholars of third world reading of international law argue that emergency governance as a colonial legal technique has been absorbed into the norms of international law and politics. It is in the international legal domain that it is so hard to argue rupture from the history and the end of the era of colonialism exclusion and domination. It has been argued that colonial experience in the Third World was one of the main fibres to establish the international system with regard to crises. Although, the current crisis be it of international health nature that does not discriminate, from the outset, across race ethnicity or religion, is not particularly exceptional neither novel and it will not be temporal since wider cross-sectional inequalities nationally and internationally predated this current manifestation of state of exception. However, what this crisis unveils in terms of inequality and the presence of developing reality within neo liberal states, will recondition our present and future. This study will consider, inter alia, the reality of economic and social rights in the Arab world it will highlight the need to rethink social structures at further international level beyond the countries of the region. It will explore how the pandemic of Covid 19 has magnified existing economic grievances and exacerbated their effect throughout the world beyond states that are characterised with development issues . The discussion seeks to engage with the role of international institutions in offering a form of coordination and protection (pursue new practices?) and to whether this part of the world could afford the same kind of exceptional measures expected by international regulations in other countries and the consequences of these measures on economic and social securities throughout the world. For this purpose, the roundtable will explore the range of responses offered by countries in the region and beyond such as responses in Europe and UK . To understand these responses, the roundtable will attempt to reflect on available International policies and geopolitical contexts. The focus on the area’s policies will be addressed within three categories of states; states of political fragility (such as Palestine, Syria, Yemen and Libya), states of economic fragility (High debt, the size of informal economy and budget deficit such as Lebanon and Tunisia) and oil exporting states (States in the Arab Gulf). At the international level, international policies in the UK and some European states will be addressed to stand at divergence and convergences offered by the available International norms and the structures of the legal order.

New Approaches to Theory, Methods and Practice
New Approaches to Theory, Methods and Practice (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 8 Drawing on a range of emprical cases and theoretical traditions, the contributors to this panel develop new methodological approaches to the study of international politics. In producing these innovative forms of knowledge production, the panellists look for new ways to analyse political practice in diverse global settings.

The Evolution of US Security Strategy Practice
The Evolution of US Security Strategy Practice (US Foreign Policy Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 7 This panel addresses the historical evolution of US national security policy practices from Cold War competition with the Soviet Union to its contemporary understanding of the threat of China.

Transnational authoritarianism and second-generation diasporas: Between repression, co-optation and legitimation
Transnational authoritarianism and second-generation diasporas: Between repression, co-optation and legitimation (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 5 In a globalized world, authoritarian regimes seek collaborate with, co-opt, control and/or repress their extraterritorial populations – that is those subjects (or their descendants) who no longer reside within the borders of the state. Therefore, various forms of diaspora engagement have become a clear priority for different migrant sending states. We have seen how authoritarian regimes not only encourage their first-generation diaspora to, for example, contribute to development and image-building for the homeland, but also increasingly seek to engage the second-generation through measures like invitations to invest in, “return” to, or learn about their country of origin. While earlier research has tended to highlight the different positions held by regime-supporters and dissidents in the diaspora, there are other systematic and significant differences that need to be recognized. Their children are, for instance, are more likely to live their lives further away from the tentacles of the authoritarian state of their parents’ homeland but may nevertheless identify and seek to engage with it. This panel deepens our understanding of the different positionalities and agency of first vis-à-vis second generations of diasporic populations and their relations to their authoritarian homeland regimes by bringing together profound theoretical as well as in-depth empirical contributions investigating, for example, the Eritrean and Turkish diasporas.

11:00 AM Coffee and conversation networking sessions - FPWG; Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding WG
Coffee and conversation networking sessions - FPWG; Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding WG
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 10

Critical Perspectives on Counter-terrorism Practice
Critical Perspectives on Counter-terrorism Practice (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 6 Panel on critical Perspectives on Counter-terrorism Practice

Existentialism and International Relations II: Panel
Existentialism and International Relations II: Panel (Contemporary Research on International Political Theory Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 5 What place, if any, there is for existential thinking in IR? To what degree has it been, or should it be, taken up? Indeed, apart from a set of essays in the *Journal of International Political Theory* in 2013, or an essay in *Ethics* in 1960, there has been no systematic study of the role or place of existentialist thought in IR theorising. This absence is perplexing given existentialism is centrally implicated in so many of the debates that we have today on subjects such as war and world-making, empire and economics, health and humanity. This is before we even turn to consider the import of literature like Mary Shelley’s *The Last Man* or Albert Camus’ *The Plague*, the representation of authoritarian leaders as Albert Camus’ *Caligula* or the issue of racism in Richard Wright’s *Outsider*. This panel offers a reading of Jean Paul Satre’s *Road To Freedom* as an IR text, reflects upon the existential threat of nuclear weapons, explores disappointment’s role as an existential emotion in social movements, and considers the existential origins of ontological security studies. In sum, we ask: what are the contributions of an existential approach to international relations in the present political moment? (While our roundtable assesses the relevance of existentialism, our panel develops fresh existentialist arguments about IR).
Michael Mulvihill Art Exhibition - 'Noise to Signal' and 'Worldly Noise and Electronic Atmospheres' - Michael Mulvihill (University of Newcastle)
Michael Mulvihill Art Exhibition - 'Noise to Signal' and 'Worldly Noise and Electronic Atmospheres'
- Michael Mulvihill (University of Newcastle)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 8
PGN-sponsored roundtable: Meet the Editors I
PGN-sponsored roundtable: Meet the Editors I (Conference/Management)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 1 An introduction to the BISA journals.
Polity book launch: Anthony King's 'Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century' (publishing July 2021) - Lawrence Freedman (King's College London, Emeritus Professor) Anthony King (University of Warwick)
Polity book launch: Anthony King's 'Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century' (publishing July 2021)
- Lawrence Freedman (King's College London, Emeritus Professor)
- Anthony King (University of Warwick)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 9
Prejudice and the Role of Different Actors in the Spiralling of the Securitization of Migration
Prejudice and the Role of Different Actors in the Spiralling of the Securitization of Migration (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 3 This year has witnessed different exceptional situations, but possibly all bond by some attitudinal reticence to combining the idea of inclusion, solidarity and care when dealing with novelty or alterity. This attitude can easily be referred to the idea of prejudice, a self-referent cognition or mind-set that tends to automatically exclude others from enjoying the same human conditions, rights and benefits that the prejudicial Self reserves to its kin. More generally, it is possible to consider that prejudice is often one of the root causes of many escalation of tensions, and the impossibility to resolve some common challenges for blinding ideas anchored to a cognition of the nation that tends to exclude rather than include different components. A cognition alike is also to be disentangled in the securitization of migration. By addressing the role of different actors in the spiralling of the securitization of migration, this roundtable wishes to examine how and why they contribute to the spiralling process of the securitization of migration. The participants will engage in a discussion for the whys the securitization of migration is not a linear process but a spiralling phenomenon, which involves different actors in a spiralling progression that both self-fulfils and reinforces migration-security nexus’ dynamics. We propose to analyze a variety of categories to clarify which ontological and epistemological stances can contribute to widening our understanding of such a process. In particular, we will address the intelligible position that prejudice takes in this spiralling process, for which a variety of actors enact policies, practices, techniques and narratives that contribute to both securitizing migration and reinforcing its nexus with crime, and the consequent necessity of a management of “migration crises”.

The Global Circuits of Social and Economic Subjugation
The Global Circuits of Social and Economic Subjugation (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 7

The Visual, Visible and Virtual Politics of Security
The Visual, Visible and Virtual Politics of Security (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 2 This panel brings together researchers working at the nexus of security practices and their representations in popular culture. With areas of focus ranging across drone warfare, cyberspace, and national security, and through engagement with resources including memoires and television shows, the panel will present new ways of engaging with the politics of security.
Widening Participation panel: Vicarious Identities in the Curriculum: Examining Muslim Women - PLEASE NOTE: This panel includes WP students who are under 18; audience members are reminded to be professional and collegial when engaging - Shahnaz Akhter (University of Warwick) Lily Mae Barton (N/A) Tonio Induli (N/A) Joseph Haigh (University of Warwick) Mia Mattu (N/A) Saarah Khalifa (N/A) Alexandra Ignat (N/A)
Widening Participation panel: Vicarious Identities in the Curriculum: Examining Muslim Women - PLEASE NOTE: This panel includes WP students who are under 18; audience members are reminded to be professional and collegial when engaging
- Shahnaz Akhter (University of Warwick)
- Lily Mae Barton (N/A)
- Tonio Induli (N/A)
- Joseph Haigh (University of Warwick)
- Mia Mattu (N/A)
- Saarah Khalifa (N/A)
- Alexandra Ignat (N/A)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Webinar Room
12:30 PM Exhibitor Hall
Exhibitor Hall
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Room: Conference Website
12:45 PM BISA Chair's Address and Prize Giving - Mark Webber (University of Birmingham) Ruth Blakeley (University of Sheffield)
BISA Chair's Address and Prize Giving
- Mark Webber (University of Birmingham)
- Ruth Blakeley (University of Sheffield)
12:45 PM - 1:45 PM
Room: Webinar Room
2:00 PM KEYNOTE 2: Roundtable: Forget International Studies? - SPONSORED BY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS - Lata Narayanaswamy (University of Leeds) Heba Youssef (University of Brighton) Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (University of Bayreuth) Jenna Marshall (Universität Kassel) Swati Parashar (University of Gothenburg) Sithembile Mbete (University of Pretoria)
KEYNOTE 2: Roundtable: Forget International Studies? - SPONSORED BY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
- Lata Narayanaswamy (University of Leeds)
- Heba Youssef (University of Brighton)
- Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (University of Bayreuth)
- Jenna Marshall (Universität Kassel)
- Swati Parashar (University of Gothenburg)
- Sithembile Mbete (University of Pretoria)
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Room: Webinar Room
4:00 PM (Structural) Forgetting? Secrecy, Ignorance and Power in International Studies
(Structural) Forgetting? Secrecy, Ignorance and Power in International Studies (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 1 This panel sets out to explore the empirical and theoretical interconnections between cultures and practices of secrecy/ignorance/forgetting and ways of knowing in International Studies. While International Studies has attended to knowledge-making practices as connected to power, the extent to which secrecy and ignorance are part of knowledge-making and unmaking remains underexplored. This panel therefore proposes to bring into conversation insights from secrecy and ignorance studies to bear on the production of knowledge within International Studies, particularly in relation to the gendered, raced and queered ways in which knowledge is (un)made. This panel aims to ‘thicken’ the understanding of secrecy within security discourses and International Studies, disrupting and overturning binaries that continue to reproduce secrecy as absent and unproductive, that continue to focus on state level secrecy practices, that reproduce the association of knowledge with vision and virtue, and that ignore the contributions of feminist, critical race and queer theorists and their contributions to understanding power/knowledge as connected to secrecy.

Agency, silence and voice in feminist international politics research
Agency, silence and voice in feminist international politics research (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 2 The examination of silence as a site of agency is an emerging practice in feminist international politics research. Parpart and Parashar (2019) contend that alongside negative articulations of silence, silence can be mobilised as an instrument to evade violence or exercise power. Hansen (2019) theorises silence as paradoxical and non-binary to move beyond the reductive dichotomy ‘speech’ versus ‘silence’. Responding to the conference theme ‘ways of knowing’ international relations, this panel takes a feminist and interdisciplinary approach to challenge dominant knowledge production within critical and qualitative studies examining relations between the international and the local that privilege voice and speech (Parpart and Parashar, 2019). We are particularly interested in papers that explore how silences are used as strategies of power and resistance; discuss theoretical and methodological approaches to researching silence in relation to gendered security and insecurities, international politics, conflict and post-conflict settings, and the creative tensions that emerge during the embodied research encounter.

Authoritarianism, Conflict and Religion in International Relations
Authoritarianism, Conflict and Religion in International Relations (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 4 The speakers in this panel seek to understand, question and challenge power, conflict and ideology across the MENA and Mediterranean region. Drawing on decolonial methodologies and challenging neoliberal authoritarianism, the papers seek to also understand power sharing, the rold of minorities and opposition actors and the effects of the pandemic on institutions and identities.

Cambridge Studies in International Relations Book Series
Cambridge Studies in International Relations Book Series
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 8 Cambridge Studies in International Relations is a joint initiative of Cambridge University Press and the British International Studies Association (BISA). The series aims to publish the best new scholarship in international studies, irrespective of subject matter, methodological approach or theoretical perspective. The series seeks to bring the latest theoretical work in International Relations to bear on the most important problems and issues in global politics. https://www.cambridge.org/core/series/cambridge-studies-in-international-relations/AE22F4B38EBA54D9E08E02BD22C39E05

Chatham House-Georgetown University School of Foreign Service sponsored roundtable: World Order in the 21st Century: Illiberal Orders, a Concert of Power, or a Western Revival?
Chatham House-Georgetown University School of Foreign Service sponsored roundtable: World Order in the 21st Century: Illiberal Orders, a Concert of Power, or a Western Revival? (Conference/Management)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Webinar Room 100 years ago many dedicated international affairs schools in research universities and think tanks were founded to educate students and devise solutions to the problem of war, peace and international order. A century later, a series of global shocks have raised profound questions about the ideas and institutions whose origins can be located in that founding moment are fit for purpose. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this concern by revealing the extreme inequalities within societies and across regions, and also the failings of international cooperation. We draw on scholars who have come together in 2020 and 2021 as part of the Lloyd George Study Group on World Order to consider a series of alternative future arrangements for international and regional governance from reforming the United Nations, Reviving the West, extending the Liberal Order, contending with an Illiberal Order, and managing a world order where China is the dominant power. Scholars on this panel also propose arrangements for a new Concert of Great Powers with limited participation from regional organizations. We evaluate the role of power, democracy, liberalism, nationalism and inequality in alternative futures for world order.

Coffee and conversation networking session - War Studies WG
Coffee and conversation networking session - War Studies WG
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 10
Meet & Greet with Palgrave Macmillan Commissioning Editors - Anne Birchley-Brun (Palgrave macmillan) Anca Pusca (Palgrave Macmillan) Rebecca Roberts (Palgrave Macmillan)
Meet & Greet with Palgrave Macmillan Commissioning Editors
- Anne Birchley-Brun (Palgrave macmillan)
- Anca Pusca (Palgrave Macmillan)
- Rebecca Roberts (Palgrave Macmillan)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 9 Are you interested in publishing a book on international studies and would like to approach a publishing editor for more details? Do you have questions about the book publishing process in general and what to look out for when submitting a proposal? Or are you interested in hearing more about Palgrave’s commitment to open research and open access book publishing programme? Then join us for an interactive meet & greet where our experienced publishing editors will be taking questions on the various aspects of scholarly book publishing in the field of IR.
Theorising International Law, Norms and Practices
Theorising International Law, Norms and Practices (International Law and Politics Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 7 This panel brings together a diverse group of scholars examining the links between international law, international norms, and practices in different contexts.

Uses of expertise in redefining global, local and transnational orders
Uses of expertise in redefining global, local and transnational orders (International Relations as a Social Science Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 3 Recent work on transnational governance and expertise shows how professional groups attain and extend their various forms of authority to different “issue areas”. Building on specific types of knowledge, they establish professional juridictions over some problems at multiple levels, from international dispute resolution to the writing of international law. We build on this research agenda to show how social groups at multiple levels mobilise such expertise to redefine global, local and transnational orders. Employing empirical case studies in various “issue areas”, we illustrate how social groups can claim authority through their capacity to use expertise recognized at the global level. We do so by expanding existing theoretical understandings of expertise and by analysing the emergence of new forms of governmentalities in novel empirical settings which redefine power relations between different actors. Possible questions, but not limited to those, are: What are the social, political, legal processes by which social groups build authority and become ‘experts’? What role does knowledge play as a form of authority in imposing new orders? How are different forms of authority related, or in conflict with each other in claiming expertise? Can we expand our understanding of expertise through other political theoretical concepts, such as representation?

Visuality and Emotions in International Politics
Visuality and Emotions in International Politics (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 6 [Note: The convenors proposed this topic as a panel which was accepted onto the 2020 programme. We are now resubmitting the topic as a roundtable with two further contributions.] The proposed roundtable takes up the recent “visual turn” in research on emotions in international politics. Empirically, it brings together research on different fields of world politics, including conflict, migration, humanitarianism and everyday political performativity. At the same time, the roundtable combines interdisciplinary research on different media of expression, including film, graffiti and fashion. Conceptually, we aim at disentangling the experience and expression of emotions from the social and political processes through which they are shaped, shared, and transformed. The various contributions challenge discourses of “authenticity” of emotions by highlighting their performativity. They combine a focus on narrative techniques, materiality and gender in order to add nuance to the study of the relationship between images and emotions.

Within / Without: Strategies and possibilities for cultivating knowledge with the Global East
Within / Without: Strategies and possibilities for cultivating knowledge with the Global East (South East Europe Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 5 Recognising the ways in which knowledge production is shaped by colonial, racial, geopolitical, and cultural hierarchies is a critical point of departure to engage with International Relations (IR) and trespass its boundaries simultaneously. This is even more important when approaching traditionally 'over-reserached communities and societies'. However, the study of these societies, often undertaken by scholars from Global North institutions, has shed further light on the existing power imbalances in knowledge production and the violence that is reproduced in the process. In fact, the same could apply to scholars from the societies in question, who are based at Global North institutions. In that context, this roundtable will reflect on different ways of unlearning knowledge extraction: facing global hierarchies, recognising non-dominant knowledges and practices, and acknowledging the intellectual authorship of those whose livelihoods we study. A group of scholars working on/with the Global East from within Global North institutions will discuss the broad question: what role, strategies, and possibilities to engage in decolonial knowledge production and knowledge cultivation can we pursue while acting from without the spaces that provide the impetus for our work? In engaging with this question, we explore different strategies in practising decoloniality and resisting power relations (re)produced by colonial and imperialist settlements. In so doing, we highlight the importance of taking into account not only the different social positionings of those whose lived experiences we examine, but also our own positionings, as subjects actively involved in the process of knowledge production. Hence, this roundtable brings decolonial approaches into a methodological, political, and reflexive discussion of IR.

6:00 PM Book roundtable: 'Global Justice and Social Conflict: The Foundations of Liberal Order and International Law' by Tarik Kochi
Book roundtable: 'Global Justice and Social Conflict: The Foundations of Liberal Order and International Law' by Tarik Kochi (Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 7 This roundtable brings together a group of experts to discuss the book *Global Justice and Social Conflict* by Tarik Kochi. Across the 20th and 21st centuries, liberalism, and increasingly neoliberalism, have dominated the construction and shape of the global political order, the global economy and international law. For some, this development has been directed by a vision of ‘global justice’. Yet, for many, the world has been marked by a history and continued experience of injustice, inequality, indignity, insecurity, poverty and war – a reality in which attempts to realise an idea of justice cannot be detached from acts of violence and widespread social conflict. In this book Tarik Kochi argues that to think seriously about global justice we need to understand how both liberalism and neoliberalism have pushed aside rival ideas of social and economic justice in the name of private property, individualistic rights, state security and capitalist ‘free’ markets. Ranging from ancient concepts of natural law and republican constitutionalism, to early modern ideas of natural rights and political economy, and to contemporary discourses of human rights, humanitarian war and global constitutionalism, Kochi shows how the key foundational elements of a now globalised political, economic and juridical tradition are constituted and continually beset by struggles over what counts as justice and over how to realise it.

Changing patterns of representation and digitalization in European diplomatic practices
Changing patterns of representation and digitalization in European diplomatic practices (Foreign Policy Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 6 *Panel proposal BISA 2021* The expansion of information technologies and the increasing pervasiveness of social media in politics paired with ongoing changes in the international order, some of which seems to be exacerbated by the current Covid-19 pandemic, begs a range of questions about the role of digital diplomacy and diplomatic representation. This panel brings together a number of scholars to discuss how digital diplomacy and changing patterns of diplomatic representation are affecting European diplomatic practices. Conveners: Federica Bicchi, London School of Economics (f.c.bicchi@lse.ac.uk) and Niklas Bremberg, Stockholm University (niklas.bremberg@statsvet.su.se) Chair: Niklas Bremberg, Stockholm University (niklas.bremberg@statsvet.su.se) Discussant: Jérémie Cornut, Simon Fraser University (jcornut@sfu.ca) *Paper abstract* **Tracking the demise of multilateralism? The evolution of the COREU network and communications in the EU foreign policy system** Federica Bicchi, London School of Economics (f.c.bicchi@lse.ac.uk) and Marianna Lovato, University College Dublin (Marianna.lovato@ucdconnect.ie) This paper will analyse the evolving practice of EU diplomatic communication via the COREU network, to show how it mirrors challenges to multilateralism in EU foreign policy. Created already in the 1970s as a way to pursue multilateral communications in-between EPC/CFSP meetings, the COREU network became crucial during negotiations for the 2004 enlargement. It experienced a dramatic decline in traffic since then, but the decline has not led to the system’s demise. Rather, the COREU system has evolved into a more targeted bureaucratic practice, with the EEAS using it predominantly to negotiate low-key declarations (via the silent assent procedure) or to spread low-key information. Plans for reform and increased security have been drafted for over two decades, but are not close to to come to fruition, as diplomats use instead more flexible forms of communications that are both more user-friendly and less inclusive than the original COREU system. *Paper abstract* **EU Diplomacy in the Washington Twittersphere: Multilateralism on Social Media?** Elsa Hedling, Lund University (elsa.hedling@svet.lu.se) European Union (EU) external representation in third countries is performed by both the member states and by the EU delegations. This hybrid system of representation is enacted through both formal and informal practices of combining bilateral relations with multilateral cooperation. As social media are inceasingly important channels of state representation, these practices also take place online. This paper explores how the member state embassies and the EU delegation perform EU representation on social media in their practices of digital diplomacy. It investigates the practices of coordination and maps emerging routines of EU multilateralism on social media. The United States’s capital provides a context of both strong bilateral relations and of member state interests in defending multilateral cooperation in light of anti-EU sentiments during the Trump administration. The study draws on observations in the Washington Twittersphere during major political events of relevance to the transatlantic relationship between 2019 and 2021. The study will contribute to advance our understanding of the role of digital diplomacy in contemporary practices of multilateral representation and in the coordination of EU foreign policy beyond Brussels. *Paper abstract* **Adapting to crises and change: EU representation at the OSCE in an eventful 2020** Daniel Schade, Cornell University (daniel.schade@cornell.edu) 2020 was a year of crisis and change for the European Union’s and its member states’ representation at the OSCE. With an organizational leadership crisis and the effects of the Covid pandemic on organisational business, the functioning of the international organisation itself was heavily impacted, all while the EU’s representation was altered with the formal effects of Brexit coming into force. This paper studies how the representation of the EU and that of the member states have adapted to this set of extensive changes affecting their posting. As an international organisation setting where the EU’s diplomatic coordination and burden sharing practice is particularly developed, an analysis of changes to representation can provide broader insights into EU diplomatic adaptation. The analysis in this paper is based, amongst others, on research interviews with EU and member state diplomats posted at the organisation. The temporal scope of the analysis ranges from the UK’s formal withdrawal from the EU to the nomination of the EEAS Secretary General Helga Schmid as the OSCE’s Secretary General at its annual Ministerial Council in December. *Paper abstract* **Digital Diplomacy in the time of pandemic: The case of the European Union** Corneliu Bjola, University of Oxford (corneliu.bjola@qeh.ox.ac.uk) and Ilan Manor, Tel Aviv University The outbreak of Covid-19 constituted a major challenge for the European Union (EU) as its capacity to manage the pandemic and to coordinate member states’ responses to the crisis was severely put to the test. This paper seeks to analyze the EU’s use of social media during the outbreak. Specifically, the paper will examine which issues the EU addressed online and how these issues changed as the pandemic spread across the continent. Using thematic analysis, all tweets published by the EEAS and the President of the EU commission between March and August of 2019 will be analyzed so as to identify the issues addressed by the EU throughout different pandemic stages (e.g., spread of Covid19 to Spain and Italy, Germany, UK and Eastern Europe). In a second stage, social network analysis will be applied to map the clusters of member states’ responses to the EU digital campaign (e.g., supportive, critical, passive). In so doing, the study will provide a comprehensive account of the EU digital crisis management during the pandemic and discuss a set of conditions by which digital collaboration between the European Commission and the member states can be improved in times of crisis.

Mapping the Future of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine
Mapping the Future of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine (Intervention and Responsibility to Protect Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 2 The R2P doctrine has faced serious challenges in recent years. Drawing on empirical data, case study, and strong normative analysis, papers in this panel chart a future for the responsibility to protect.

Non-traditional instruments of Russian foreign policy: media, social media and strategic humour
Non-traditional instruments of Russian foreign policy: media, social media and strategic humour (Russian and Eurasian Security Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 4 N/A

Perspectives on intervention
Perspectives on intervention (Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 3 Examining stabilisation, non-violent protection, Masculine narratives, and self-determination

Review of International Studies Roundtable II: Racialised Violence in Global Politics
Review of International Studies Roundtable II: Racialised Violence in Global Politics (Conference/Management)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 1 Racialised Violence in Global Politics

The Other Histories of International Relations: women thinkers, forgotten locations and unexplored genres
The Other Histories of International Relations: women thinkers, forgotten locations and unexplored genres (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 8 Despite growing work on historical women international thinkers, the narrative of IR history, its canon and locations, remain overwhelmingly white, male and Western-centric. However, taking women – defined as a historical constructed category, not fixed biological identity – as a starting point reveals other histories, new locations and unexplored genres. The first sixty years of the 20th Century saw both the creation of IR as a distinct academic discipline and the mass political mobilisation of women across the world in campaigns for suffrage, peace, anti-imperialism and anti-racism – phenomena that were not just connected but mutually informative. The intersection of gender with race and imperialism is brought to the fore in South Asia, where exploring the “imperial experiences” and political participation of Indian women reclaims South Asian feminist thought as international thought. The formative role of colonialism in IR is reinforced by Muna Lee’s international thinking on culture whilst working in Puerto Rico. The gendered restrictions on women thinkers encouraged informal paths such as Miriam Camps’ working in US and UK think tanks after the Second World War. The same restrictions led to the co-opting of Radcliffe’s Bureau of International Research by Harvard in 1924, rendering its women founders and researchers invisible to history. These diverse subjects repeatedly bring to light how lines of gender, race and colonialism channelled women into the very locations, roles, genres and blurred practice/theory lines that were then used justify excluding them from the history, canon and self-image of IR. Recovering women thinkers reveals and disrupts these lines.

What do we know about Conflict? Interogating Representations of War and Security
What do we know about Conflict? Interogating Representations of War and Security (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 5 This panel brings together researchers examing the politics of how conflict (broadly conceived) is understoond and represented. Drawing from a range of theoretical traditions and engaging with diverse cases and resources, the panellists are united by their drive to produce new and innovative ways of interogating the politics of knowledge around war and security.
Wednesday, June 23, 2021

9:00 AM Africa's changing international relations: new justifications, new forms of intervention
Africa's changing international relations: new justifications, new forms of intervention (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 1 In the years after 1989 African international relations was often analysed as a clash between international agencies and NGOS, on the one hand - who were bearers of international norms - and, on the other hand, African states -who were resisters of these norms. In different ways the papers in this panel challenge this understanding. They analyse African states own ideological projects, their contributions to peacekeeping norms and practices, the legitimation work of Chinese NGOS in Africa, and justifications for humanitarianism that go beyond the 'white saviour complex' alone.

Art and/of Military Afterlives (please feel free to bring needle and thread, drawing or painting materials)
Art and/of Military Afterlives (please feel free to bring needle and thread, drawing or painting materials) (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 2 Theatre created by military spouses. | Drawings made undercover in international arms fairs. | Artwork produced with paper composed from shredded veterans’ uniforms. In this roundtable we bring interdisciplinary scholars and artists into conversation in order to explore the ways that art and military afterlives intersect and become entangled. We seek to give texture to the multiple, complex, and diverse ways that the afterlives of war and military participation at once manifest through, and are represented in, creative practice. We ask: what kinds of temporalities and affects do military afterlives occupy? And, what can art and creative practice offer our understanding of these affects and temporalities? This roundtable will foster a creative collaborative space for all those in attendance. Contributors will be invited to talk through their creative scholarship and forms of engagement with the roundtable themes, but also to demonstrate their creative practice in action. At the same time, those who are ‘attending’ the session will be encouraged to also take part and engage in this creativity. We will then come together and share what we have created at the end of the session, so that the roundtable itself enacts art and/of military afterlives.

Making Sense of International Politics
Making Sense of International Politics (Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 5 This panel explores a number of methodological avenues for the analysis of global politics. Contributions discuss a variety of approaches for research beyond the state-centric paradigm of pre-21 Century IR.

Migration and asylum management: Space and actors
Migration and asylum management: Space and actors (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 3 This panel focusses on the role of the space and actors in the context of migration and asylum management. Displacement, detention and necropolitics become the epicentre of discussion, while looking at the risky routes that migrants take to cross borders, and their encampment. The restrictive migration policies and the strict population management methods have undermined the international protection for asylum seekers and they reproduce a logic and practice of securitisation. This panel tries to shed light on the spatial conceptualisations of the migration-security nexus, and on the transforming role of agents (such as the refugees themselves, or the NGOs), the struggles that occur between them in the framework of neoliberal governmentality and necropower.

Perennial and New Challenges in International Law and Politics
Perennial and New Challenges in International Law and Politics (International Law and Politics Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 6 This panel brings together papers considering perennial and developing challenges in international law and politics, spanning the law of armed conflict, human rights and the environment.

Polish International Studies Association sponsored panel: Polish IR scholarship
Polish International Studies Association sponsored panel: Polish IR scholarship (Conference/Management)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 7 Panel sponsored by Polish International Studies Association
Polity book discussion: What's Wrong with NATO and How to Fix it - Andrew Cottey (University College Cork) Mark Webber (University of Birmingham) Martin Smith (Royal Military Academy Sandhurst) Rita Floyd (University of Birmingham)
Polity book discussion: What's Wrong with NATO and How to Fix it
- Andrew Cottey (University College Cork)
- Mark Webber (University of Birmingham)
- Martin Smith (Royal Military Academy Sandhurst)
- Rita Floyd (University of Birmingham)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 9
Security, Foreign Policy and Globalisation
Security, Foreign Policy and Globalisation (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 4 This panel focuses on security discourses during the pandemic and humanitarian crises. It investigates how foreign policies are transforming in response to domestic challenges and new international relations across the region.

The politics of comparison and relationality: colonial grammars, knowledge production and counter-politics
The politics of comparison and relationality: colonial grammars, knowledge production and counter-politics (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Room 8 The politics of comparison and relationality: colonial grammars, knowledge production and counter-politics
11:00 AM A conversation with Professor Jenny Edkins, winner of BISA's 2021 Distinguished Contribution Prize - Jenny Edkins (University of Manchester) Ruth Blakeley (University of Sheffield) Mark Webber (University of Birmingham)
A conversation with Professor Jenny Edkins, winner of BISA's 2021 Distinguished Contribution Prize
- Jenny Edkins (University of Manchester)
- Ruth Blakeley (University of Sheffield)
- Mark Webber (University of Birmingham)
11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: BISA Room
Challenging Coloniality in the International Anti-Trafficking Agenda to Reimagine Research Practice
Challenging Coloniality in the International Anti-Trafficking Agenda to Reimagine Research Practice (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 2 This roundtable discussion will focus on experiences of developing decolonial research practice within the field of human trafficking/anti-slavery, especially in relation to UN Sustainable Development Goal 8.7. There has been steadily growing international attention on this topic since the Palermo Protocol established an agreed definition of human trafficking in 2000. The main driver until recently has been the US, with its State Department producing an annual Trafficking in Persons report ranking performance, where low rankings can mean cuts to countries’ aid funding. More recently the UK government has sought to carve out a role and assert international leadership, notably with the issuance of a global ‘call to action’ in 2017, and an increase in the share of funding allocated through ODA (official development assistance). Despite this political focus, there has been widespread criticism of the effectiveness of interventions, particularly in relation to the dominant criminal justice paradigm and the lack of a human rights or social justice dimension, but also as a neo-colonial discourse (Okyere 2017). Scholars have raised concerns about the use of colonial imagery and appropriation of black suffering to further conservative agendas around immigration and sex work (O’Connell Davidson 2015, Beutin 2017). Scrutiny of international efforts has also criticised governments for a lack of strategic thinking, and an absence of a solid evidence base to inform programmes and actions (Independent Commission on Aid Impact 2020). Participants bring expertise in relation to undertaking research in this field in East, West and South Africa, as well as developing practices and methods for research in the development sector. They have worked together to develop the recent (2020) UK Collaborative on Development Research (UKCDR) guidance on safeguarding in international research, and as part of the Anti-Slavery Knowledge Network (AKN), funded through the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council through the Global Challenges Research Fund and hosted by the University of Liverpool in partnership with the University of Ghana (Legon), Universities of Nottingham and Hull. The AKN has commissioned and supported community-based and creative approaches to modern slavery as an international development issue working with a range of different partners.

Existentialism and International Relations I
Existentialism and International Relations I (Contemporary Research on International Political Theory Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 9 What place, if any, there is for existential thinking in IR? To what degree has it been, or should it be, taken up? Indeed, apart from a set of essays in the *Journal of International Political Theory* in 2013, or an essay in Ethics in 1960, there has been no systematic study of the role or place of existentialist thought in IR theorising. This absence is perplexing given existentialism is centrally implicated in so many of the debates that we have today on subjects such as war and world-making, empire and economics, health and humanity. This is before we even turn to consider the import of literature like Mary Shelley’s *The Last Man* or Simone De Beauvoir’s *Old Age*, the representation of authoritarian leaders as Albert Camus’ *Caligula* or the enduring issue of racism in Richard Wright’s *Outsider*. Bringing together interdisciplinary scholars working on pandemics and the politics of time, war and world-making, feminism and micropolitics, this roundtable asks: What are the merits and limits of an existential approach to international relations in the present political moment? (While our roundtable assesses the relevance of existentialism, our panel develops fresh existentialist arguments about IR).

Giving primacy to movement: re-theorising global and transversal politics
Giving primacy to movement: re-theorising global and transversal politics (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 3 Over the past decades, international studies scholars have become increasingly attentive to the role of movement in global politics. However, the primacy of movement as a constitutive and relational element of global politics is often hidden by the academic frameworks within which questions of movement are approached. This panel explores the politics of theorising movement and brings together scholars who are attending to the concepts by which movement is understood, and exploring new modes of theorising politics through movement. The panel is an invitation to bracket an international studies that organises political life by means of territorial tropes of sovereignty and borders, and to conceptualise movement in a manner that conveys the turbulence and transversality of the worlds we study and live in. The panelists interrogate and re-think concepts of ‘nomad’, ‘home’, ‘tourist’, ‘soldier’, ‘explorer’ to parse their associations with state and territory, and attend to the constitutive role of movement, from the colonial origins of Australia’s contemporary carceral island borders, to the management of bodily movement at the Imperial War Museum.

New dimensions of asylum and migration
New dimensions of asylum and migration (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 6 Refugees and migrants have suffered in new ways and in nee dimensions over the last few years. Especially with the pandemic, we have seen new forms of scapegoating of migrants by new societal actors. In the end, a lot of this is based in old historical processes that have emerged in new forms. This panel investigates these new dimensions across different countries and continents in the world in order to underline the importance of asylum and migration for our current understanding of international relations.
PGN Meet the Editors II - CLOSED SESSION, INVITE ONLY - Saskia Stachowitsch (University of Vienna) Jocelyn Mawdsley (Newcastle University) Greg Stiles (Global Policy) Janina Pescinski (Queen Mary University of London) Christian Lequesne (Sciences Po) Althea-Maria Rivas (SOAS) James Strong (Queen Mary University of London) Tom Vaughan (Aberystywth University) Xymena Kurowska Emily Flore St Denny (University of Copenhagen) Milja Kurki (Aberystwyth University) Khursheed Wadia (University of Warwick) Hill Christopher (University of Cambridge)
PGN Meet the Editors II - CLOSED SESSION, INVITE ONLY
- Saskia Stachowitsch (University of Vienna)
- Jocelyn Mawdsley (Newcastle University)
- Greg Stiles (Global Policy)
- Janina Pescinski (Queen Mary University of London)
- Christian Lequesne (Sciences Po)
- Althea-Maria Rivas (SOAS)
- James Strong (Queen Mary University of London)
- Tom Vaughan (Aberystywth University)
- Xymena Kurowska
- Emily Flore St Denny (University of Copenhagen)
- Milja Kurki (Aberystwyth University)
- Khursheed Wadia (University of Warwick)
- Hill Christopher (University of Cambridge)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 8
Political Studies Association of Ireland sponsored panel: Global Challenges – Power, Politics, and Policies of Maritime Governance, Climate Change, and Covid-19
Political Studies Association of Ireland sponsored panel: Global Challenges – Power, Politics, and Policies of Maritime Governance, Climate Change, and Covid-19 (Conference/Management)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 7 Global Challenges – Power, Politics, and Policies of Maritime Governance, Climate Change, and Covid-19

The prioritisation of health: national, regional and international perspectives
The prioritisation of health: national, regional and international perspectives (Global Health Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 1 This panel explores how health – and different aspects of health – have been prioritised or otherwise within national, regional and global institutions. Clashes of political and institutional cultures can lead to difficulties and delays in both agenda setting and implementation. Individual papers address the relationship between Brazil’s health and foreign ministries; the UK’s response to COVID-19 and its impact on other health needs; regional social policy in Latin America; and why some attempts at global health regulation fail to get off the ground.

Tracing Intersections of ‘Race’, Gender, and the Colonial Afterlives of Foreign Policy Organisations
Tracing Intersections of ‘Race’, Gender, and the Colonial Afterlives of Foreign Policy Organisations (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 5 Feminist IR has illuminated the importance of gender to understanding how foreign policies and the organisations that make and implement them are produced. The discipline of international relations, however, continues to suffer from “racial aphasia”, and mainstream feminist IR has been criticised for failing to centre analyses of ‘race’ and coloniality. Nonetheless, there is a burgeoning academic literature on the topic of ‘race’ in/and IR, which demonstrates how the racial structures and hierarchies created by slavery, Empire, colonialism, and capitalism, remain central to international politics and foreign policymaking. This panel explores the intersections of gender and ‘race’, and colonial afterlives, in shaping the life of organisations in international politics, including governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations. It will trace these intersections across the foreign policies developed and implemented across these organisations. The panel asks: how does gender and ‘race’ shape the everyday practices of organisations that constructs or influences foreign policies? How do processes of gendering and racialisation in these organisations influence foreign policymaking, or make particular foreign policies possible or intelligible? How are spatiality and power dynamics shaped by the colonial afterlives of organisations/, and vice versa? In what ways does gender and ‘race’ reproduce colonial-racial logics in foreign policymaking, and how might these processes be subverted?

Winning and Losing in US Foreign Policy
Winning and Losing in US Foreign Policy (US Foreign Policy Working Group)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Room 4 Donald Trump's foreign policy narrative focused on questions of 'winning' vs 'losing', and regularly invoked tropes of national humiliation. This panel examines those narratives, and asks how we should understand Trump's and Biden's foreign policy approaches.

12:30 PM Coffee and conversation networking session - International Law WG; Russian and Eurasian Security WG; GIRWG; SE Europe WG; CPD WG; Global Health WG; PPWG; Ethics and World Politics WG; Nuclear Order WG; Interpretivism in IR WG
Coffee and conversation networking session - International Law WG; Russian and Eurasian Security WG; GIRWG; SE Europe WG; CPD WG; Global Health WG; PPWG; Ethics and World Politics WG; Nuclear Order WG; Interpretivism in IR WG
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Room: Room 10

Exhibitor Hall
Exhibitor Hall
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Room: Conference Website
2:00 PM KEYNOTE 3: Reset the International System and Reboot International Studies? Delivered by Dr Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International and former UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary killings - SPONSORED BY PALGRAVE MACMILLAN - Agnes Callamard (UN/Amnesty International) James Rogers (University of Southern Denmark)
KEYNOTE 3: Reset the International System and Reboot International Studies? Delivered by Dr Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International and former UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary killings - SPONSORED BY PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
- Agnes Callamard (UN/Amnesty International)
- James Rogers (University of Southern Denmark)
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Room: Webinar Room
4:00 PM (Re)Constructing to Govern: Security Praxis and the Production of Acceptable Citizenry
(Re)Constructing to Govern: Security Praxis and the Production of Acceptable Citizenry (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 1 Security praxis produces certain forms of desired citizenship. This panel critically assesses the practice of security policies around the world, and the implications for those on the other side of their gaze. Security operations and the imaginaries they generate, whether these exist in the pre-crime space (counter-radicalization programmes for instance), or whether the policies are targeted at protest groups (rubber bullets in Kashmir), allow only for limited forms of citizenry acceptable to the state. Where alternative subjectivities exist, these are striated and made governable through securitizing interventions. Protesters who are then blinded, marginalised Muslim communities who are then exposed to counter-radicalization programmes, or immigrants made vulnerable to NATO's military seaborne operations, make more malleable potential threats to govern. We find that certain forms of citizenship must be allowed to die, in order for security practices to make sense. Whether this is intentional, deliberate, capable protesters, or racialised communities (imagined to be) aggrieved at their exclusion from society, these groups are reconstructed into distinct and governable entities that can be understood and managed by the state. This panel ultimately points to the very tangible effects that the power of imagination in security politics produces.
Bristol University Press Book Launch - Grand Strategy in 10 Words: A Guide to Great Powers in the 21st Century by Sven Biscop - Sven Biscop (Ghent University) Stephen Wenham (Bristol University Press)
Bristol University Press Book Launch - Grand Strategy in 10 Words: A Guide to Great Powers in the 21st Century by Sven Biscop
- Sven Biscop (Ghent University)
- Stephen Wenham (Bristol University Press)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 7
Chatham House sponsored roundtable II: Domestic Politics and Foreign Policies: Interests, Articulation, Content and Impact
Chatham House sponsored roundtable II: Domestic Politics and Foreign Policies: Interests, Articulation, Content and Impact (Conference/Management)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Webinar Room It has become conventional wisdom that domestic political interests, popular attitudes and movements are inserting themselves in new ways in foreign policy from Brazil to the EU to India to the United States. But is this process different from the past ways in which domestic interests and sentiment influenced foreign policies in the past? Is it possible that just the voices and constituencies have shifted and not the ways those have been articulated and their concrete impact on public debate over foreign policy and specific policies? Using case studies in Europe, the Americas and Asia, this roundtable will explore three key questions: 1) to what extent are domestic politics shaping foreign policy decisions? 2) to what extent is the influence of domestic politics and constituencies different then in the past? and 3) what if any change is this provoking rhetorical, symbolic and – most important – substantive changes in foreign policies? Discussion will also examine the role of transnational movements in affecting these changes. Participants will discuss the effect of populist movements and governments in India and Europe on the symbolism and content of foreign policy. Another participant will examine long-term trends in US popular sentiments toward foreign policy and attempt to trace those attitudes, their articulation and representation in specific movements and partisan factions and their impact on concrete policy initiatives across a range of issues. Chair: Dr Renata Dwan, Deputy Director Chatham House • ‘New India, New Foreign Policy?’, Dr Gareth Price, Senior Research Fellow, Chatham House; • ‘Is European Foreign Policy Populism that Different?’, Dr Angelos Chryssogelos, Associate Fellow, Chatham House; • ‘Just No-Nothings and John Birch-erism Updated? US Foreign Policy under Trump and the Hangover’, Dr Christopher Sabatini, Senior Research Fellow, Chatham House • ‘Brazil, Bullets, Beef and the Bible: Bolsonaro’s Politics Meet the World’, Elena Lazarou, Associate Fellow, Chatham House

Exclusion and Expansion in Global Capitalism
Exclusion and Expansion in Global Capitalism (International Political Economy Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 4 An IPEG panel

International Relations, Securitisation and Muslim communities
International Relations, Securitisation and Muslim communities (Religion and International Studies (RAIS) Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 8 Following on from the theme of the BISA Conference questioning the future of International Studies, the Religion And International Studies working group (RAIS) at BISA is pleased to host a panel that looks at questions pertaining to how international studies and religion do impact upon each other. It is clear that religion is an important factor in understanding how events unfold in the world of International Studies, and no less so than in recent years. We run a great risk in failing to understand precisely how religion matters - and how, indeed, it does not, where it is used as an excuse to problematise religious communities. Our panel at BISA 2021 will include a variety of papers specifically aimed at religious communities, marginalisation, securitisation, and broadly the interchange between religion and international studies.”

Intimate Conflicts: Queer Lives in Times of War
Intimate Conflicts: Queer Lives in Times of War (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 5 Conflicts become perpetual realities in the lives of those displaced, exiled, racialized, minoritized, queer and trans across different borders, societies, times and spaces. From private to public, personal to political, relationship with intimacies; love, kinship, desire and death become a constant negotiation. Those who are exiled, refugees, diasporas, asylum seekers, minoritized, queer and trans live in a state of relentless struggles with the state, home, and exiles for life, survival and intimate moments in between. What are these conflicts? What do we mean by queer? How is queer embedded within the experiences of displacement and diasporas? What are these intimacies? How do minoritized individuals across different borders and boundaries experience ‘intimate conflicts’? The artists, activists and scholars on this roundtable will shares their poetry, art work, narratives and scholarships exploring these inquiries through an intimate, collective, queer and feminist conversation.

Memories and Genealogies of IR
Memories and Genealogies of IR (Historical Sociology and International Relations Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 6 Panel on the memories and genealogies of IR

Security studies and/of climate geoengineering
Security studies and/of climate geoengineering (Environment Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 2 While direct global interventions to deal with global warming ('climate geoengineering') is sometimes claimed to be able to help ameliorate risks associated with global temperature rise, on the other hand, the physical and political side effects of geoengineering techniques, uncertainties surrounding their viability, and the political context in which deployment might take place might all generate novel security dilemmas. So far, the historical involvement of military actors in weather modification has not been openly replicated in interests in climate geoengineering techniques (such as stratospheric aerosol injection or marine cloud brightening). But how reasonable is it to anticipate security concerns or military interest regarding the regional or local impacts of such techniques, and military involvement in (and surveillance implications of) delivery mechanisms (stratospheric flights, robot vessels etc), amongst other things is still unclear. This round table provides an opportunity to consider whether and how security dynamics and practices might interact with climate geoengineering. Questions include: How might climate geoengineering constitute new forms of 'security'? Could security concerns arise over aspects of planetary scale ‘carbon geoengineering’ (or Negative Emissions Techniques)? Which geo-political and security interests might be served by or are already investigating climate geoengineering and why? What security justifications might be deployed for climate geoengineering? What new interests emerge in the securitization of climate geoengineering? How might such shifts interact with climate justice concerns and drivers?

“The China-Factor: Sino-British Relations and the Conundrum of Economic and Security Interests”
“The China-Factor: Sino-British Relations and the Conundrum of Economic and Security Interests” (International Political Economy Working Group)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Room 3 Over the past few years, the consequences of China’s four-decade economic rise have finally spilled over into the international arena. This development has led to shifts that extend across geopolitics, security, diplomacy, and the political economy, opening new horizons while challenging long-standing dogmas. Like many countries from the United States to Europe and South-East Asia, the United Kingdom is struggling to create a coherent 'China strategy' that overcomes the problematic interlocking between economic and security interests. Indeed, London has to balance a crucial trade interaction with Beijing, the Anglo-American special relationship, ongoing developments in the South China Sea, and a unique historical bond to Hong Kong. Papers in this panel seek to unpack this conundrum from the viewpoint of two corresponding perspectives. On the one hand, one paper considers the shifting landscape through the lens of US-China geopolitical competition. Conversely, two papers investigate Sino-British relations by looking at UK’s securitisation of Chinese Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) and by exploring the concealed networks behind the significant events of the Sino-British relationship in recent years. Finally, one paper looks at UK-China relations historically. This way, the panel provides a comprehensive picture that accounts for both geopolitical and policy dimensions of Britain’s China dilemma. Considered together, the papers reveal a complex and multifaceted account where engagement with China may become one of Downing Street’s most sophisticated dilemmas.

6:00 PM Becoming Fluent in Fieldwork: (Un)learning What Is Good/Ethical/Responsible Fieldwork
Becoming Fluent in Fieldwork: (Un)learning What Is Good/Ethical/Responsible Fieldwork (Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 6 This roundtable looks to disrupt the conventional understanding of doing good, ethical and responsible fieldwork (Sidaway 2000; Jazeel & McFarlane 2007; Mason, Brown & Pickerill 2012). We propose a conversation about the ongoingness of doing fieldwork and the politics of imagining different worlds that this entails. By foregrounding the processual nature of becoming fluent – rather than fluency – the roundtable engages with recent developments in international relations that conceptualise fieldwork as interpretive and always in flux in messy and processual ways (Eliasoph 2005; Carabelli and Deiana 2019; Kušić and Zahora 2020). Building on and further developing these interventions, the participants discuss two focal questions: 1. Given the proposed processual nature of fieldwork, how do we develop and maintain fieldwork fluency, understood as a continuous praxis of fieldwork? 2. How does becoming fluent shape our understanding of what good/ethical/responsible fieldwork is, and what are the different ways of negotiating this in our respective fields? Becoming fluent in fieldwork entails developing reflexive expertise: a process of continuous (un)learning, figuring out, of negotiating and relating – a balancing act between the planned and the unplanned (Cerwonka & Malkki 2007). This process entails negotiating and making decisions about what is good/ethical/responsible research, and how to navigate tensions between possible definitions (Ackerly & True 2008; Adedi Dunia et al. 2019). As we approach fieldwork as a continuous process in which we constantly work at our praxis, the roundtable critically interrogates how we (un)learn together with our research participants, beyond conventional understandings of ethics in field research (Torre et al. 2018; Nagar 2014). In sharing their journeys of becoming fluent in the field, the participants present reflexive and ongoing engagements with fieldwork as a continuous process that contributes to our understanding of academic, individual and collective efforts to negotiate research ethics, practices of care and fieldwork praxis. References Ackerly, Brooke, and Jacqui True. 2008. “Reflexivity in Practice: Power and Ethics in Feminist Research on International Relations.” International Studies Review, 10 (4), 693-707. Adedi Dunia, Oscar et al. 2019. “Moving Out of the Backstage: How Can We Decolonize Research.” The Disorder of Things, 22 Oct. 2019, https://thedisorderofthings.com/2019/10/22/moving-out-of-the-backstage-how-can-we-decolonize-research/#_ednref3. Carabelli, Giulia, and Maria Adriana Deiana. 2019. “Researching in Proximity to War. A Love Story.” Journal of Narrative Politics 5 (2): 91-101. Cerwonka, Allaine, and Liisa H. Malkki. 2008. Improvising Theory: Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Eliasoph, Nina. 2005. “Theorizing from the Neck Down: Why Social Research Must Understand Bodies Acting in Real Space and Time (and Why It’s So Hard to Spell Out What We Learn from This.” Qualitative Sociology 28 (2): 159-169. Jazeel, Tariq and Colin McFarlane. 2007. Responsible Learning: Cultures of Knowledge Production and the North-South Divide. Antipode, 39, 781-789. Kušić, Katarina, and Jakub Záhora, eds. 2020. Living and Knowing in the Field (of IR), E-IR. Mason, Kelvin, Gavin Brown and Jenny Pickerill. 2012. Epistemologies of Participation, or, What Do Critical Human Geographers Know That’s of Any Use? Antipode, 42 (2), 252-255. Nagar, Richa. 2014. Muddying the Waters: Coauthoring Feminisms Across Scholarship and Activism. Urbana, Chicago, Springfield: University of Illinois Press. Sidaway, James. 2000. Recontextualising Positionality: Geographical Research and Academic Fields of Power. Antipode, 32 (3), 260-270. Torre, M. E, Stoudt, B. G., Manoff, E. and M. Fine. 2018. “Critical Participatory Action Research on State Violence: Bearing Wit(h)ness across Fault Lines of Power, Privilege and Dispossession,” in The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (5th edition), edited by N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln, 492-515. California: Sage Publications.

Critical friendship or critical distance: Engaging with the military in research
Critical friendship or critical distance: Engaging with the military in research (War Studies Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 2 Critical military studies engages in a sceptical curiosity about military power but where does the proximity of researcher and researched figure in this relationship. This roundtable reflects on the boundary between the military and academia through the different experiences of interactions either as veteran researchers, through professional military education or as long term but more distant observers. The roundtable will consider the following questions: - Can one be too close to be critical? - How does critical friendship inform knowledge production? - What is lost by not engaging in direct dialogue with the military? - Is the military open to hearing critical academic voices and where does the veteran voice fit in this?

Ethics and World Politics
Ethics and World Politics (Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 3 This panel showcases original research from across the field of contemporary global ethics, bringing established scholars into dialogue with early-career researchers. Covering the ethics of war, of trade, of healthcare provision, of migration, and of international-ethical theorising itself, the panel represents a broad cross-section of cutting-edge research in its subfield. The papers are united by bringing a discussion of ethics and moral principles to bear on their respective empirical domains of international/global practice.

Foreign events through the lens of Russian media
Foreign events through the lens of Russian media (Russian and Eurasian Security Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 5 Most of what we know about foreign events is shaped by the media we consume. This drives contemporary autocracies to employ their state-controlled media in an attempt to influence popular opinion both at home and abroad. What media strategies do they employ? What goals do they try to achieve with these strategies? Digital datasets along with the wide variety of methodological approaches enable us to attempt to answer these questions. Our panel sheds light on the variation in media narratives employed by Russian state-controlled media in relation to major international phenomena and events: COVID-19 pandemic, contemporary military conflicts, and the spread of conspiracy theories. The analyses rely on the archives of the major media outlets; methodological approaches employed by the researchers vary from novel NLP tools to in-depth qualitative discourse analysis. The research contributes to the literature on Russian foreign policy as well as general diversionary war scholarship.

Is ‘Critical Security Studies’ relevant to meeting the security challenges of the coming decade?
Is ‘Critical Security Studies’ relevant to meeting the security challenges of the coming decade? (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 4 In many ways, the global coronavirus pandemic typifies the security challenges states are likely to face over the coming decade. The harms and instabilities likely to emerge from ecological crisis, global health challenges, mass migrations, global poverty, cyber insecurity and political instability will likely be transnational and planetary in nature, and escape more ‘traditional’, state-centric, militarised security paradigms. From this analysis, it would seem that ‘critical security studies’ has a lot to contribute when it comes to responding to these challenges. Critical approaches are premised on denaturalising the state as the sole referent of security and have challenged the way liberal democracies have privileged the use of force and militarism to produce security. Yet, while critical approaches to security have come to dominate some parts of the academy, it is not always clear what their impact on security policy has been. To assess the relevance of the insights of critical security studies to contemporary security challenges, and with a view to ensuring they do not remain consigned to the ivory tower, this roundtable brings together academics, policymaking and NGO communities to ask three key questions: • To what extent have critical security concepts, theories or frameworks already influenced or been adopted by security policy circles? • In what ways might critical security studies reshape policy debates when confronting the security challenges of the next decade? • How can academics best engage in informing and producing alternative conceptions of security policy?

Perspectives on Peacebuilding
Perspectives on Peacebuilding (Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 1 The panel examines theoretical approaches to Peacebuilding

The State of War: From the Strategic to the Tactical
The State of War: From the Strategic to the Tactical (War Studies Working Group)
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Room 7 Panel on the state of war